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All the old timers know this one but some new folks may not have thought of it.
Especially when sailing alone it can be handy to run a jib sheet across the cockpit from the leeward side to the weather side to cleat it off.
This way you can release the sheet from the windward side of the boat.
You can tighten the sheet by just yanking the center of the line directly towards the back of the boat then tightening up the slack. It's called sweating the line and is faster than getting out the winch handle.
Dinghy sailors do this all the time but it is working well here on a 25' Catalina.
Of course you are right. but if you are in hurry or the handle is on the other side or you just don't feel like it it, or you lost the handle it is good to know that sweating a line like they did on the old ships before winches were common still works.
Just another simple old time trick that might come in handy.
Cross sheeting is a very handy trick. I've done "just to see" how it works. Then it had me thinking.... If there was a single winch in the middle.... LOL
Greetings Earthlings The Sail Training vessel 68 ft only had one sheet winch in the cockpit centre and as with all sail training vessels if it is too heavey get more people on it the anchor was also lifted by hand other vessels in the fleet are the Sir Samual Withbreat, Falmath Packet, Francis Drake, Sir Thomas Sopwith,Tiakoo, and Grania all part of the Ocean Youth Club ( now the Ocean Youth Trust UK.) GO SAFE.
Cross sheeting is very useful on lightweight boats upwind in a strong breeze, where the last thing you want to have to do is send someone from the weather rail down to the leeward winch to trim.
I've tried it when singlehanding but so far I'm not convinced.
1) Trip hazard in the cockpit, right in front of the companionway? When singlehanding? Seriously?
2) I don't like sitting in one place for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Crossing the boat to trim the jib is a good excuse to move around and point my head the other direction. I need to peek under the jib to look for traffic more often than I need to trim the jib anyway.
3) I think on dinghies you really don't want to move around if you don't have to, because you are the ballast. But on bigger boats, moving around isn't as much of a big deal.
1. What are you going down the companionway for. The beer should be on deck and real men piss off the rail.
2 Up your Ritalin dose. Once you get on a starboard tack and have the sheets balanced you don't have to move a muscle until land is near which could be months depending on your location.
3. Your kidding right, moving around is always a big deal.
And of course if the motor is on you instantly take as nap. Ask Benne
P.S. The above comments are a lame attempt at humor, no offense meant.
2 Up your Ritalin dose. Once you get on a starboard tack and have the sheets balanced you don't have to move a muscle until land is near which could be months depending on your location.
Months? Morning after a daysail I usually wake up with my head permanently stuck pointing to the left (or right, depending on the dominant tack). Maybe I need to mix in some muscle relaxant with my Ritalin. Or maybe I need my Ritalin brought to me by a masseuse. When she's not otherwise occupied she can trim the leeward sheet
Good thread, David. I use cross sheeting frequently on my Catalina 22 when singlehanding. It just depends on the winds and how much moving around I care to do.
David, thanks for refresher on cross sheeting...used cross sheeting
once to complete cruise when winch froze.
As of late...usually think of cross(as in angry)sheeting only when out of line crew member reacts to being "short sheeted".
Best, Hugo
Adam, david is right. It's common for single handers to cross sheet, not to mention being safer working from the high side of the boat. Yes, moving matters on most boats, even keel boats <40'... larger if it's a high performance boat.
I was out on my Catalina 22 this weekend and gave this a try. All I can say is that I feel silly now for not doing this before. It was so easy to keep trim my jib sheets using thus method. I'll definitely be cross sheeting more often next season.
Glad you liked it. Also don't forget that if you happen to forget and leave the winch handle down below like I did yesterday and the sheet is too hard to pull in by hand and you don't want to luff cross sheeting gives you a way to pull it in.
Just take the tail in one hand and use the other hand and grab the sheet right in the middle between the two winches and pull straight back towards the stern. As you release pull in the tail. This way you can sheet in without a winch. It is called sweating the sheet and was a very popular technique in the days before winches.
David, that is exactly what I did with my sheets. The wind came up heavy on me and I had a 150 headsail up. I was on a broad reach and it was difficult to handle the tiller and sheet the headsail. I took the jib sheet and gave it one turn on the leeward winch brought it across to the the windward winch and gave it two turns around it and fixed it in the jam cleat. When I needed to trim I would pull the sheet to me and take up the slack.
I think I wrote a wall of text to basically say I I did exactly what you described.
I can't believe I didn't think of this. I've gone back to the dock because of high winds, finding it difficult to take the helm and the headsail at the same time. I would sit on the leeward side holding the genoa sheet with 4 wraps and tiller with my foot.
I've gone back to the dock because of high winds, finding it difficult to take the helm and the headsail at the same time. I would sit on the leeward side holding the genoa sheet with 4 wraps and tiller with my foot.
That is a pretty good point. I have also found myself in this situation where I'm leaning back on the leeward cockpit coaming, feeling like I'm reaching up to everything, holding the tiller a bit to windward with my foot while trimming in the sheet (with my non-ST winches). Still, that task doesn't take forever, and I have a tiller pilot which sometime does half the work for me (and sometimes adds work).
I,ll give it a go next time I,m out though my bilg keeler ain,t so sensitive to weight distribution. Have only used sweating when tightening springs till now. Always good to see old time tips that work.
Safe sailing
Hm. I think it's convenient to leave spinnaker sheets permanently on the winch drum, which means that to cross-sheet I'd have to have both sheets permanently across the cockpit. Also they couldn't go straight across because the opposite winch is busy carrying the opposite sheet, so they'd have to go diagonally up to the primary winches or something. At least with my cockpit layout, sounds way too spider-webby for me.
If you just mean half a wrap on the leeward drum and then the trimmer holds the tail on the windward side... I wouldn't call that cross-sheeting.
Definitely. I think mine might be in a somewhat old-fashioned location, aft of the primaries, in comparison with race boats I've crewed on, which used winches on the cabintop for sheeting the spinnaker.
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